The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-04-08

A Book That VIII give she Num er-
Gus ssClugs'' a Fins Opportunity
for Profound study.
Hence, get ye homeward, SO great
and renownad ones, nights children
unchilded, with kindly attendanee"-
so, in English, run the words wherein
Eschylus takes farewell of the Eumen-
ides. Mr.. Browning Fates-C lotho,
Lachesis, and Atropos-bid us good-by
in his new poem thus:
Clotho: BAH
Lachesis- Tra-la-la!
AtrOpOS: Ha, ha, ha!
1t is true that words of Apolo's in
terrupt these laconic greetings, and yet,
looking at the printed page, n feels
inclined to ask, Is this poetry, or an
extra ct from some classical extravan-
"a at the Savoy theater? Romanticism
is indeed triumphant. Perrault and
Hugo have tr;umphed owe Boileau,
and Ar stole, and ESchylus, when a
justly famous English poet can take
those liberties with the Fates. Even in
the days of Theophile, of the flamboy-
ant waistcoat, it may be doubted
whether the widest of the generation
would have made Clotho, Lachesis,
and Atropos drink the wine of m0rtals
till they said bah, "tra-la-la." and
"Ha, ha, ha" to a god" Say boo to
you. pooh-pooh to you is within meas
urable distance of this familiarity. Mr..
BrOwning's new volume, in which
these and other singularities occur. is
styled '.Parleving with certain people"
1t is a return, and we think a more for
tur" return, to the form of art in
which MIR. Browning wrought his best,
his immortal poems, the poems of MEN
and Women" and "Bramatis, Per-
sonm." The prologue between Apollo
and the Fates is headed with referen-
cos to texts il the HOmcric hymn to
Hermes, in the ''Eumenides, and in
"Alcestis." Apollo held a dialogue on
the value of mortal life, and especially
on the life of AdmetuS, for whom AL
cestis died with the Fates. The ideas
of the poem are interesting, and cast
their light on the foundations of
things. 1t is too late to presume to
argue with Mr.. Browning on his meth
DDS. Lord Tennyson in youth altered
many of his poetic ways, as age brought
the philosophic mind, and the philo-
sophie mind, as it Glanced, rejected
most of the things which criticism had
censured, But Mr.. Browning has ever
taken his own way. The classical taste
of the mere perruque with which we
confess a sympathy might deferen-
finl1v 1,n,nr fN a Cnnonh lilo chic
which Mr.. Browning assigns to Lache-
SIS
Woe-purpled, weal-prankt-if it speed, if it
linger-
Life'ssubstance and show are determined by
me,
Who, meeting out, mixing, with sure thumb
and finger.
Lead look the due length; is all smoothness
and glee,
ALL tangle and grief2 take the lot, my deereo!
The speech, difficult even with the
context, sufficiently displays the causes
Of Mr.. Browning's obscurity, discovers
in his style those tenebriferous stars"
By which Paracelsus is said to have X
planned the phenomena of night.
Strange stars rayed out darkness, Par
acelsus dreamed. here be the similar
consultations Tor a few of them) that
make Mr.. Browing's poetry obscure TO
the multitude. First come odd words;
''Shun IN unusual word like a hidden
reef is said to have been the maxim of
no less a critic than Caius Julius Caesar.
Now, 'purpled, in the first line, is a
very unusual word. Speaking from
memory alone we remember no more
familiar use of it than that of Mallory
in the Mort d'Arthur," king Ryahce
would purple his mantle with twelve
! kings beads" One can fancy the well
meaning student of poetry looking out
purple in his English dictionary, and
practice of that sort is chilling work.
''Weal-p:ankt" is not so difficult.
Doubtless the poet uses these archa-
isms and these clashing consonants
purposcly, to indicate the archaic char
acter of the venerable Fates and the
harshness of their dispositions. In the
same stanza the words lead lock the
iue length entirely battle us. We
have tried 'leadn and clock" both as
Substantives and verbs, but unless they
are employed in some technical sense
we fail to get any meaning out OF them.
This may be mere dizziness of appre-
hension, but other English poets yield
ap their treasures Of their sense more
easily. The next stanza, Ineligible
enough, causes, like most of Chap
mans poetry and a good deal of Keats
'.Endymionn an uncomfortable feeling.
Is if rhyme had suggested the expires
lion, rather than that the expression
subdued to itself the thyme.
The Fates. whose business it is to as
,ign our mortal thread, weave it and
cut it short, as we
Moirai who dangled